Postmasters Calls on Congress to Stop Closing Post Offices and to Let USPS Pension Overpayments Prefund Retiree Health Benefits

National League of Postmasters Calls on Congress to Stop Closing Post Offices and to Let USPS Pension Overpayments Prefund Retiree Health Benefits

USPS Pension and Retiree Health Benefits Payments Should be Realigned;
USPS Should Not Withdraw from the Federal Retiree Health Benefit Plan.

ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA – “Enough is enough. Congress must act. The time to act is now and the action to take is to allow the Postal Service’s pension overpayments to be transferred to its retiree health benefit fund,” said LEAGUE President Mark Strong in a statement submitted today to the Senate hearing on the Postal Service crisis. “This would allow the Postal Service to stop closing rural post offices and stop devastating thousands of small rural communities,” he added.

Today’s hearing, chaired by Senator Joseph Lieberman (CT), was before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Entitled “U.S. Postal Service in Crisis: Proposals to Prevent a Postal Shutdown,” today’s hearing focused on the current conditions of  the Postal Service and the fact that Congress will not let it use its pension overpayments to prefund its retiree health benefit obligations.

“Allowing the Postal Service to use those overpayments, calculated by actuaries to be as much as $75 billion, to prefund the retiree health benefit obligation would relieve the Postal Service’s current financial stress and allow it to calmly refocus on the future,” said Strong. “It would also help the economy and help prevent a double-dip recession,” added Strong. “Ideas such as withdrawing from the Federal Employee Health Plan are terrible ideas, should not be taken seriously, and simply reflect the frustration that top Postal Service management feels,” he concluded.

Because of the way the law is written, the Postal Service must make more than $8 billion per year in pension and retiree health benefit payments, despite pension overpayments of up to $75 billion. While the Postal Service has been losing billions of dollars each year since the recession started, if the overpayments were officially recognized and credited towards the retiree health benefit obligation, and current payments stopped, it would be running in the black,” said Robert Brinkmann, the LEAGUE’s Legislative Counsel. This “crisis” is a crisis that, while precipitated by the recession, has been created by Congress, and it is a crisis that only Congress can resolve.

The National League of Postmasters has been representing active and retired postmasters throughout the country since the later part of the 19th Century.

3 Responses to "Postmasters Calls on Congress to Stop Closing Post Offices and to Let USPS Pension Overpayments Prefund Retiree Health Benefits"

  1. We now have a lapdog Press that is too lazy and too under-funded to find out the REAL truth about the manufactured Postal financial “crisis”;in fact,the impotent Press is an accomplice of this crooked,dim-witted Congress!!!!

  2. You’re right D Ray…those freeloading, crooked dopes in Congress spent all the USPS’ hard-earned money years ago;they are in “crisis” mode presently using the manufactured Postal financial “crisis” to cover their tracks!!!The American public doesn’t know(and, sadly, doesn’t care)what is really going on!!”Crisis” politics in action!

  3. LOL…that overpayment was spent long ago my friend, by guess who! That’s one of the reasons some of us believe that the USPS is under attack, it’s called a diversion.
    The USPS is doing well and would be in the black if not for interference from, guess who!

    The USPS has made many meaningful changes, doing it’s part to stay the great institution that it is. One thing that I have noticed is that the USPS has made many personnel changes through attrition, early retirement packages and other means. They are also structuring their product to meet todays e-commerce needs. The newer rates for shipping packages is catching on in a big way in the e-business world and many of the vendors that I order from are now offering free shipping based on the great pricing structure the USPS is currently advertising. The USPS has even became the preferred shipper on the largest on-line auction site today because they are faster and cheaper. I used to get tons of deliveries from UPS and FED-Ex, but not anymore. Any logical and rational business person would use the most cost effective means to get merchandise from their stores and warehouses to customers since many, many people shop at home today. The $3.99 package and other great priority packaging prices has taken the USPS’s focus off of the 44¢ stamp as it’s main revenue bearer and causing us to successfully adapt to e-commerce in a big way. Businesses continue to use the USPS to deliver catalogs, fliers and all manners of advertising because they also realize the potential for revenue by using this very important service thats goes to every home that has a physical address registered. I made regular during the very first contract negotiated by the APWU with the USPS and through the years Mr. Moe Biller and Mr. William Burris told us that we should expect change and adapt as society and technology advances, thats is, if we were listening.

    Don’t count the USPS out just yet!!!

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